Strangely, Honda just debuted the Honda Civic Type R Pickup Truck concept, a clearly one-off, hacked-away version of its Big Wing-Having, 316 horsepower, front-wheel drive rocket. Now it has a practical bed for storing boxes of overnighted parts from Japan. The vehicle is pretty pointless, and by “pretty pointless,” I mean “awesome.”
Debuted at a Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders event in the UK, the “Project P” concept—as it is called internally at Honda—was built by a team of product engineers at the UK Manufacturing plant in Swindon, England.
According to Honda, the engineers took a standard pre-production Type R and “adapted the design rearwards from the B-pillars...with sweeping lines from the roofline to the back,” which is PR-speak for “hacked off the pillars and roof.”
I’d say this thing is actually closer to a ute than a pickup, and with its fairly small diamond plating-lined bed and its lack of a tailgate (a prerequisite for any pickup, if we’re honest), it doesn’t look all that practical. But the Civic Type R is all about being over-the-top madness, so I say there’s nothing wrong with letting engineers go nuts.
Plus, a huge rear wing (which Honda says is movable for access to the bed) on a ute is just cool.
The company says it’s considering taking the pickup to the Nuerburgring, and that it’ll likely use the truck to transport “lawn and garden products,” going on to mention the obvious fact that “there are no plans to put this in to production.”
Which is probably just as well, as I’m sure sawing away at that unibody didn’t do much for the Type R’s handling. And also, I’m not sure how well a high-horsepower front-drive sports car would deal with a bunch of weight in the rear. Especially on a hill-start.
Still, I’d give it the green light for production.